Insights on Psychological Theory and Explanation: An Assembly from Twitter

This discussion initiated by Ekaterina Damer has led to numerous suggestions from psychologists on Twitter. Here are the noteworthy recommendations, including the name of the person who suggested each. I haven’t personally reviewed these, but I wanted to gather them in one location. Feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments.

(Iris van Rooij)
“How does it work?” versus “What are the laws?” Two perspectives on psychological explanation. Robert Cummins

(Ed Orehek)
Constructing Theory in Social Personality Psychology: Personal Experiences and Insights: A Special Issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review

(Djouria Ghilani)
Personal Insights on Theory and Psychology
Gerd Gigerenzer

Notable Works of Barry N. Markovsky

(almost everyone, but Tal Yarkoni expressed it this way)
“Meehl covered the majority of what there is to discuss regarding this”

• Theory-testing in psychology and physics: A methodological conundrum
• Evaluating and revising theories: The Lakatosian defense strategy and two principles that justify it
• Reasons why summaries of research on psychological theories frequently lack interpretability

(Speaking of which, PsychBrief has been exploring Meehl and provides detailed summaries here: Paul Meehl on philosophy of science: video recordings and publications)

(Burak Tunca)
What Theory is Not by Robert I. Sutton & Barry M. Staw

(Joshua Skewes)
Valerie Gray Hardcastle’s “Constructing a theory in cognitive science”.

(Randy McCarthy)
Chapter 1 of Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2015). Theory and explanation in social psychology. Guilford Publications.

(Kimberly Quinn)
McGuire, W. J. (1997). Innovative hypothesis generation in psychology: Some valuable heuristics. Annual review of psychology, 48(1), 1-30.

(Daniël Lakens)
Jaccard, J., & Jacoby, J. (2010). Theory Construction and Model-building Skills: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists. Guilford Press.

Fiedler, K. (2004). Tools, toys, truisms, and theories: Reflections on the innovative cycle of theory creation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(2), 123–131.

(Tom Stafford)
Roberts and Pashler (2000). How convincing is a good fit? A commentary on theory testing

From the conversation, it’s evident that the theory crisis will be just as dynamic and contentious as the methods crisis.

Updates 16 August 2018

(Richard Prather)
Simmering et al (2010).